In this century, the human race has done some pretty amazing things. We’ve cured diseases, invented countless devices and somehow made Kim Kardashian a celebrity. But the thing that continues to amaze me is the fact that people find going to the moon mundane.
It absolutely astounds me that people think space travel is boring. We are the first generation of people, as well as the first known species, to literally leave our planet behind. Yet people just don’t seem to care.
Why is it that we see traversing the stars like this? We weren’t always bored with going into space. In fact, about 500 million people watched the first moon landing in 1969. That’s more people than there are in the United States today. So, what happened?
Well, we stopped dreaming.
Reaching the moon had seemed like such an impossible task for so long that once we finally did it, we felt like we had done all we could with space travel.
We had gone to that big gray thing in the sky. Mission accomplished.
But the problem is that it isn’t. Columbus didn’t find the New World and say, “Sweet, I’ve found a new continent! Well, I guess I’m done here.” Native American atrocities aside, the New World still needed to be explored, mapped and colonized.
Similarly, we’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us.
And wiping our hands of a project so beautiful and amazing as manned space
travel is
ludicrous.
Imagine being able to fly to the moon for a week-long holiday just to get away from the kids. Maybe you’ll play craps at the local lunar casino and watch Earth slowly set on the horizon at night.
It sounds ridiculous, but so did the ability to fly through the air in a metal tube just 100 years ago. Now, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t been on an airplane.
There’s still Mars to land on, colonies on other planets to form and distant galaxies to explore. We have the power to do all of this in time; all we need is to keep the dream alive.
But some people don’t concern themselves with whether or not space travel is interesting. These are the people who say manned space travel is useless and such a dream is a massive waste of taxpayer money. Shouldn’t we be using that money to build roads, fund hospitals or help the needy?
This is a fine argument until you realize that the budget required by NASA equates to about half a penny for every dollar the U.S. government spends. I don’t even waste my time trying to pick up a dime if I drop it — what’s half a penny?
Of course, the government shouldn’t drop money on everything it finds interesting. But the idea of space travel isn’t just a frivolous expenditure we should pay for because it’s cool.
It’s the physical embodiment of the American Dream. We as a nation have the power to do whatever we set our minds to, and space travel shows the vastness of this power.
When I hear people say how expensive or useless these space programs are, I’m always reminded of a great quote by physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson: “How much would you pay for the universe?”
— kevsjack@indiana.edu
